Achievement Unlocked: Knitting Dish Cloths

A while back, like a year or so ago, I decided it was high time I learned to knit. I grabbed the needles I inherited and dove in, head first, as usual. I looked up videos on YouTube and struggled and struggled....and struggled.

Last summer, I had a great opportunity to visit my mentor and help her out. In return, she showed me how she knits and it literally opened the door for knitting. Seriously. Without her, I probably would have given up. I had a great start, but I did not like it.

Before, knitting felt clunky and I thought it should feel smooth like crochet, no matter the skill level.

After, I was whipping up my first dish cloth.

Continental Knitting made sense. I scoured YouTube. I watched the video my mentor sent me. I got it. I totally got it. It was similar to crochet and I made a dish cloth. Pictured here is dish cloth number 2. Dish cloths are easy to do and a chance to explore stitches. I do the same with crochet...if I'm not crocheting in the round (which I love!).

Lessons Learned:

• More like Achievement Unlocked! I can knit! I like knitting! It's easy and makes sense.
• Mentors are cool people. Even if I'm not in touch as much as I want to be/should be.
• My craft skills include: sewing, crocheting, knitting.
• After I get the first step, I can teach myself stuff!
• Knit dish cloths are actually a lot nicer than the crochet ones I've done...which is a bummer and awesome...

Foodie Friday: Tofu Scramble

Remember my idea ages ago with Foodie Friday? Well, I'm trying again, but this time, I'm including stuff made by Husband. Why? Let's be honest, in this place, he does the cooking. I do the baking...usually. He's a good cook and we have a lot of recipes we've adapted for gluten free cooking.

Tofu Scramble & Rice

Today's comes pretty much gluten free right off the bat. Pro tip: just because you're gluten free doesn't mean you have to focus only on gluten free cookbooks. I'm really glad we don't because some of our favorite recipes come from general books. For example:

 Mushroom Scrambled Tofu (or as we call it: Tofu Scramble) which is in The Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet by Nava Atlas (page 133). This book was an impulse buy from one of our favorite used book stores. It only cost us $5 and was like new!

The Cooking

Now, since I don't cook this, I really can't comment on it. The only thing I can say is that I'm so glad he uses an iron skillet. I personally think food tastes better when cooked in iron, but that's me.

Not instant.

I did ask him though what he thought about cooking this recipe: "SOOOOOO easy. The only thing that would make it easier is if you used instant rice." He doesn't. He's been experimenting with cooking real rice. Anyway, I know this is a recipe he likes to make up because every week he asks "Tofu Scramble?" This is his go-to dish once a week for the simple fact it is easy. It also provides us with 4 meals: 2 for that night and 2 for leftovers.

Taste

When he first made this, I thought this looked like scrambled eggs. I thought it was going to be bland, but surprisingly it isn't and it goes great with rice (actually, there's curry powder in this). In fact, this is one of those dishes I look forward to as left overs. Unlike some other leftovers, this one keeps flavor and is fantastic mixed up in rice. I tend to have it as my evening shift dinner and I think it is a good match. It is light and delicious.

Modifications

YUM.

First, the recipe calls for margarine. Um. No. We do not do margarine in this place. We use butter. Butter is good. 

Next is the mushrooms. Whatever is on sale at the store is what we get, but no matter what, they work. I think at some point, he wants to experiment with rice and move us from white rice to something else.
 
Fourth, we've used both soft and firm tofu and it seems to turn out the same both ways, but the softer tofu is definitely better. 

[Edit from Husband: I usually add some salt to the rice, both as a counterpoint to the mushrooms and so the rice can stand on its own. We usually end up with some rice left over.]

If you can check out this book, do. We haven't fully explored this book yet, but just from this recipe, I think that there is probably more in here we'll love. We just haven't tried many yet. This recipe is (for the moment) in our rotation of recipes.
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PS: I'm still looking into affiliate programs for books so you can visit a site to check out the book. Any favorites? Any not so favorites? Leave me a comment.  (Amazon is out.)

THIFTING SCORE: Cake Thingy

I've been baking off and on the last few weeks. My favorite thing to bake right now is this chocolate-y g-free cake that has a main base of potato starch. It's from the book You Won't Believe It's Gluten Free. A fantastic book by the way for those on the g-free diet. Most recipes are made 4 different ways so, if you have a corn issue, you can try with potato or rice based instead or if you have too much rice in your diet, you can try another base.

Anyway. I've been eying this lovely thing for a few days now from Fresh Hot Vintage. Then I did what any person would do: searched Etsy for a variety of covered cake plates and favorited them. (Yes, I have a thing about roosters.) Now why do I want one?

I want to try a two layered cake soon, but need a way to store it. So, I put it out there over the weekend that I wanted to find one at the thrift store and I'd follow through by going today. I also put out there that I also really want a vintage cake decorating set. I didn't find that because I put the request out there this morning (probably need 24 hours for that to follow through but it is a long shot since the last one I saw at the thrift store was in the silent auction section. Cookie presses you can find dozens of, but cake decorators? HA. I've been lazily looking.).

I did find this though:

Just the top, first. How frustrating.

First, I found the top, then I spent another 10-15 minutes wandering to see if I could find a suitable bottom. Sure. I could just put my cake on a dinner plate and cover, but what if I want to travel with this thing?

Eventually, I found this guy:

TA DA.

 And together, it works pretty well. The cover part doesn't fit perfectly, but enough to stay on.

Yes, I have a K'Nex Light Box...

And the grand total of this purchase: $5.25.
Oh wait. I have a coupon for 25% off.
About $3.80 when all said and done. I also took my own bag.

SCORE.

Achievement Unlocked: Quilting - Kitchen Rug!

Happy New Year! I've started the New Year off right: by finishing a craft project that was on the table for TOO LONG.

First, the inspiration from Pinterest: 

Source: sewwequilt.com via LibraryElfDesigns on Pinterest

A lovely quilted kitchen floor mat from SewWeQuilt (links above). Now, the issue at hand was what fabric would I use? How big would mine be? We definitely needed a floor mat by the sink.

I had also gained a bag of upholstery fabric scraps that someone else had in mind for a quilt of some sort ages ago (I think last January). So, I started poking through the pieces and found quite a few that would work wonderfully for my general kitchen theme. I cut them into 5 inch or so squares (might be 5.25 inches) and spent a lot of time trying to decide just how I'd lay them out. After that, I used The Workhorse (my 1950s Singer machine) and put the blocks together, put on a backing (light blue terry cloth fabric I had) and quilted it. Here's before the binding:

Look at how nice that all works, although, I think it is technically upside down in this pic. Notice the egg!
Copyright LibraryElfDesigns

Full disclosure: I have NEVER put a quilt together from start to finish. You may remember the Patriotic Quilt I am/was working on. That's a quilt top so far. Tops I have made...mostly. Not sure I've done any blocking/borders/what-have-you yet. I find the idea of hand quilting not something I want to do. Machine quilting, yes. Hand quilting, not so much. I know the Patriotic Quilt could use something (I'm waiting on something from my stash that'll work).

Anyway, since this was my first time quilting from start to finish, I needed help. This Pinterest Pin, titled "Beginning Quilting Series" in my Pin, proved very, very helpful:

Source: diaryofaquilter.com via LibraryElfDesigns on Pinterest

With the help of the "Binding 101" section, I put the binding onto the rug and ta-da! Finished rug! I only needed a little bit of hand sewing because the one corner was too much for the machine.

TA DA! It is frugal and pretty!
Copyright LibraryElfDesigns

There are a few things I learned from this that I need to make note of for next time. So here are...

Lessons I Learned

• The upholstery fabric was great, but the seams are a bit bumpy so standing on it isn't comfortable (ok. I've only done this for about 5 whole minutes so I could be wrong). Next time, I really should do more than the two layers I chose to do out of laziness.
• Next time, don't start the binding in the corner...
• ...but the binding method from the above pin was the EASIEST binding ever. I thought it would be a very difficult task, but not with that machine binding technique.  
• It needs something on the back to stop it from sliding. I have some ideas, just wanted to get that project off my table to free up room for the craft table.
• I can now say I've done a quilt! Even if it is slightly a cheater quilt. I love feeling frugal and thrifty and having something that looks great.
• I would definitely make another rug like this.